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United Republic of Columbia
Columbia, also known as the United Republic of Columbia, is a city floating in the sky, commissioned by the United States government and founded by Zachary Hale Comstock as a symbol of American political and religious ideals. The city, capable of flight due to the scientific discoveries of physicist Rosalind Lutece, was completed in 1893, and seceded from the United States in 1902. It is the primary setting of BioShock Infinite. Since the death of Comstock, the city soon rebuilt itself and managed to purge itself from the Vox Populi, restoring its status quo. Despite its continued discrimination against Irish people, blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and muslims, the restored nation managed to establish some changes, including its newly found tolerance towards the Jews and Homosexuals. Despite this, it remained fanatically loyal to Comstock, whom they now proclaimed him to be a martyr. However, when it encountered both the Alliance of Nations, the Coalition of Independent States, and the Axis of Empires, primarily the Empire of the Combine Race and the Helghast Empire, the city decided to declare itself neutrality from the conflict and both three superpowers began to hold peaceful diplomatic relations with it ever since. Within the Bioshock universe by 2030, it soon moved itself to Mars, where it could be in peace and ensure the survival of its traditions. Politics and Foreign Policy Originally, the floating city was divided between two major factions: the xenophobic, pro-feudalist, theocratic party known as the Founders and the communistic, pro-totalitarian, revolutionary group called the Vox Populi. However, since the death of Comstock, the Founders forced the Vox Populi to disband itself, which later became the Communist Party of Columbia (which denied Comstock as a prophet in support of "true" Christian beliefs). In time, as it reconstructed itself, a new political group consisting of far-right, atheistic, racist, pro-nationalist extremists formed the Nationalist-Enlightenment Party (mirroring Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party) soon became a major faction that threatened to overcome the influence of both the Founders and the Communists. nevertheless, the Founders remain the dominant political party in power and had been ever since. Small conservative and liberal groups with more democratic views also exist, but have little influence within Columbian politics. By the 1960's, the last major political party to emerge consisted of an all-white, Protestant, Judeo-Christian movement that later formed into the Constitutional Party of Columbia, led by the flamboyant racist Eugene Cottonfield (called by his political rivals as the "white Negro", due to the fact that his great grandfather was born with an African-American mother and a white father), who promoted segregation and yet denounced the other three major factions while accusing them of "un-patriotic fear-mongering". While being a competitive ground for all of the major parties, Columbia, nevertheless, prefers to be a neutral nationstate in order to preserve the status quo. Although home to racism and xenophobia, Columbian society often rejects the model of Nazism, claiming that it did nothing more but killed off fellow white men in the process under a tyrannical heretic (referring to Adolf Hitler), regardless if the victims were either Jewish or Christian. Since Comstock's death and the rise and fall of the Nazis in Germany, anti-semitism was officially banned by the Founders and gave the Jews the title of "honorary white men" while denouncing the atrocities committed by participators of the Holocaust. There are even propaganda posters of Anne Frank that depict her as both a hero and ally to Columbians and Jews alike. Communists are also despised, but are not considered a threat to society as they once were before, possibly because of the chaotic downfall of the Vox Populi. Columbia is also extremely isolationist and tends to appear to be somewhat "eccentric" in the eyes of tourists. Sometimes, beyond Columbia's territory, citizens within other nations usually make jokes out of them while addressing them as "flying hillbillies", "aerial bible-readers", and "yankee sky-dwellers". Relations with the Alliance of Nations Although highly uninterested with joining with the Alliance of Nations, Columbia does have friendly relations with it the most, compared to other powers in the multiverse. Columbia, within Comstock Square, even holds an Allied Embassy and much military-supplies are given to the Allies by the Columbian government. Relations with the Eldar Since 1953, when a few Eldar survivors crashed landed on Emporia, the Columbian government appears to hold rather negative views towards them, due to their "elf-like" appearance. Since then, the Eldar who live within the floating city are often discriminated by the Anglo-Saxon majority for their appearance while being called "pale-skinned Injun elves" by the city's inhabitance. The Founders tend to put high surveillance upon Eldar communities, fearing that intermixing between humans and Eldar would result in the birth of abominations. Such paranoia even caught the attention of the Nationalist-Enlightenment Party, which demanded that all aliens within Columbia should be exterminated at sight. However, the Founders, who control the government, reject the idea of committing genocide and instead established a two-child policy in 1982 to prevent the Eldar minority from outnumbering humans. Between 1990 and 1992, a major crisis known as the Eldar Rebellion of 1990, occured within Finkton and spread into Emporia, killing 30 citizens, men and women alike, in the process. Eventually, however, the Columbian military brought down the rebellion and a status quo was established with further surveillane placed upon the aliens. Overview Columbia originally floated above the North American continent and was comprised of neoclassical buildings similar to cities in the American Northeast (such as Boston) existing in the early days of the United States. It eventually moved into the planet Mars, where they had terraformed the planet. While reactors, propellers and balloons are present throughout the city, its ability to float is due to quantum levitation which allows objects to be suspended indefinitely. The city is also designed with "rain-catchers" that collect water from precipitation in the clouds to keep the vegetation and populace supplied with water. The city was designed with docking stations and propulsion devices to allow its building sections to move about independantly. Columbia was constructed for long distance travel, allowing for national and international tours. The city had a regular route across the United States with periodic stops near major cities, connecting to relay stations which contain transport rockets. These rockets function as a means of entry into Columbia, accessible via coded signal. Columbia's internal means of transportation include zeppelins, Cargo Barge|cargo barges, hovercrafts, gondolas, and Sky-Lines. By the 1930's, fighter planes, refrigerators, television, and floating plane-carriers were developed much later.Bridges are also automated to connect with different moving portions of the city at various stations, scheduled like any other transportation system. Columbia's Purpose Zachary Comstock named his city after an angel, he claims showed him a vision of a city in the air, and asserts that he was chosen to lead people to a "New Eden." This vision signified him being a prophet. After meeting Rosalind Lutece and learning of her Lutece Field, he used his connections in Congress to propose the construction of the city, in which he would eventually play the role of prophet and leader. The U.S. government intended Columbia to be a showcase of American exceptionalism. The city was launched to great fanfare in 1893 at The World's Columbian Exposition, and was later dispatched to distant shores. What began as an endeavor of achievement and hope went badly wrong. In 1901, during the Boxer Rebellion, Columbia fired on Chinese civilians who had taken American hostages. This event revealed the floating city was a heavily armed aerial battleship, capable of unleashing devastation across the world. A rift emerged between leadership in Columbia and Washington and, in response, Columbia seceded from the Union the following year and disappeared into the clouds. Comstock now had complete control over the city, transforming it from a floating world fair to a theocratic police state. This emerging utopia had its flaws. Comstock's regime believed that Columbia represented the true society envisioned by the Founding Fathers and viewed America and the rest of the world with contempt, describing it as "the Sodom Below." Institutionalized racism and elitism were widespread in Columbia, with Anglo-Saxon supremacy widely asserted by the upper classes. People of "minority races" were subjugated in Columbia, with some (such as eventual Vox Populi leader Daisy Fitzroy) brought in to serve as slaves or indentured servants. Racial segregation was heavily enforced within the city, to the point where interracial couples faced the risk of a public stoning. As a result of this separation, minorities were largely relegated to menial labor with no opportunity for upward mobility. The hard labor workforce at Fink Manufacturing (well-known for mistreating its workers) was chiefly composed of the city's minority population. Such policies are widely accepted by the majority of the upper and middle class, though some exceptions existed. Torture and murder of minorities is ignored by the main political party in Columbia, the Founders, along with the Columbian police authorities. Control was covertly enforced brutally by a white supremacist group, the Fraternal Order of the Raven. Columbia is a militantly pseudo-Christian society, based upon the cult of Father Comstock as a divine prophetic figure. Deviation from this state-imposed dogma was considered unacceptable. The Founders, led by Comstock, were the prevailing political faction in Columbia, retaining exclusive control over the city's society, government and business infrastructure. They enforced Comstock's religious and social vision, and in turn benefited from it as part of the privileged social strata. Religious Beliefs and Philosophies Major beliefs held by citizens in Columbia: *The Founders - The majority of Columbia's citizens worshiped Father Comstock, following his word blindly and trusting wholly in his prophecies. As a result, they stood by his decision to intervene in the Boxer Rebellion, and Columbia's subsequent secession. The people of the city also worshiped Elizabeth as the Lamb of Columbia, believing she would fulfill Comstock's prophecies in years to come. The Founders also worshipped the Founding Fathers -- particularly George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin -- as religious icons. Each of the three was associated with a different symbol, according to what they gave to mankind: Franklin was associated with the key, a symbol of knowledge; Jefferson was associated with the scroll, a symbol of law and order; and Washington was associated with the sword, a symbol of power and justice. *Fraternal Order of the Raven - The Order was an even more radical branch of the Founders, tasking itself with the brutal enforcement of white supremacist policies and the assassination of Vox Populi figures, chief among them Daisy Fitzroy. They revered John Wilkes Booth as their central figure and demonized Abraham Lincoln as a corrupt figure of evil. They also revered Lady Comstock, and worshiped the sword, the raven, and the coffin in her memory. *Buddhism - The belief of awakened enlightenment, followed mostly by the Chinese immigrants in Columbia. This belief was regarded with hostility within Columbia, and was practiced in secret. Chen Lin and his wife were followers of Buddhism when Booker and Elizabeth first encountered them; however, in an alternate reality, Mrs. Lin was white and followed the Founders. *Social Darwinism - Darwinism as a scientific theory did not feature prominently in Columbia, but was known and marked as taboo -- on the shores of Battleship Bay, a citizen can be heard attempting to discussing Darwinism and is hastily hushed by his companion. In spite of this, Columbian society employed warped Darwinian concepts as justification for their bigotry. However, since the death of Comstock, scientific darwinism, mixed with scientific racism, was later supported by both the people and the government in order to continue racial segregation. Business Fink Manufacturing was the largest business in Columbia, as well as its largest employer and manufacturer. Due to a high demand for Vigors in Columbia, Fink Manufacturing bottled and distributed Vigors produced by independent, contracted businesses, such as Marlowe for Murder of Crows. The work floor at Fink Manufacturing showed its dominance in various markets -- one floor, for example, was devoted to automated turrets, while the one above focused on children's toys. Smaller businesses produced various items for the people of Columbia, the Founders, and the Vox. However, most of these companies were quickly bought out by Fink's business empire, leaving him the sole distributor for goods in the city. There were some exceptions, such as the Duke & Dimwit Company, which produced propaganda pieces via books, toys and machines. Despite these business opportunities, 50% of every Silver Eagle earned went directly to Comstock, which deeply affected the laborers of Columbia. Furthermore, Fink's price gouging and heavy-handed exploitation of his workers forced them into poverty, frequently leading to starvation and disease. This, in turn, further exacerbated the rise of the Vox Populi. Science and Technology Comstock believed that scientific knowledge was the blueprint of "God's work," and that it could therefore be practiced and controlled in the name of God. Almost every advancement in Columbia was the direct product of the mind of Rosalind Lutece, a quantum physicist and one of the most prominent scientists of her time. Her work led to the discovery of the Lutece Field, a field capable of manipulating the properties of subatomic particles. One such application was the suspension of particles in space, facilitating the creation of airborne machinery and, by extension, the city of Columbia. Following her work on the Lutece Field, Rosalind Lutece made an even more ground-breaking discovery: the device she created allowed her to interact with parallel realities, leading her to contact her duplicate from another universe, Robert Lutece. Through their joint effort, they developed machinery capable of creating contingencies in the space-time continuum, or Tears, allowing Robert to travel to Rosalind's reality (albeit at a great physical cost). Father Comstock interpreted these Tears as revelatory visions of the future, precipitating his delusions of grandeur. Through use of these Tears he orchestrated the transfer of Anna DeWitt, rechristened as Elizabeth, to Columbia as his successor, unknowingly giving birth to her reality-bending powers by splitting her form across multiple realities. In an attempt to control her powers, he had the Luteces engineer several Siphons, devices capable of feeding off of her energy. Their experiments nonetheless led to the spontaneous formation of Tears around Columbia. While most citizens regarded these Tears as a mere curiosity, individuals such as Jeremiah and Albert Fink exploited the insight they offered into parallel technologies. Whereas Albert simply used Tears as a means of trans-dimensional artistic theft, Jeremiah copied the designs of other researchers (some of them hinted to be from Rapture) in order to create radically new technologies, such as Vigors, Voxophones and Motorized Patriots. Based on the blueprints of an armored suit, he engineered the development of the Songbird Defense System. Conspiracy and Revenge against Comstock As Zachary Comstock observed the Tears engineered by the Lutece twins, he became convinced that the glimpses of potential futures were in fact prophetic visions. Styling himself as the Prophet, he envisioned a future in which Columbia would bring forth a cleansing apocalypse across the world below, reshaping it in the city's image. However, repeated exposure to the device left him sterile, prematurely aged and terminally ill. In search of an heir, he used the Luteces' device to travel to an alternate universe in 1893 and purchase the daughter of his counterpart, Booker DeWitt. He rechristened her Elizabeth, and established her birth as the result of a miraculous seven-day pregnancy. The transfer also granted Elizabeth the power to create Tears when one closed on her little finger, causing her to exist in multiple realities. Lady Comstock, the Prophet's wife, did not take kindly to this fraud. Unwilling to listen to Rosalind Lutece's explanation, she accused her and Comstock of having an affair, and threatened to reveal Elizabeth's true nature to the public. Desperate to maintain the myth surrounding the Lamb of Columbia, Father Comstock orchestrated Lady Comstock's murder and framed her scullery maid, Daisy Fitzroy, for the crime. However, Daisy escaped custody and went on to lead the Vox Populi as revenge against the Founders. In order to preserve secrecy, he also engineered the sabotage of the Lutece Twins' device in an attempt to murder them and cover up their deaths. Unbeknownst to him, the accident actually scattered them across the space-time continuum, allowing them to travel freely across all realities. Determined to set things right, they contacted Booker DeWitt and arranged his journey to Columbia. Events of BioShock Infinite Upon transfer to Comstock's reality, Booker's memories are rewritten: rather than setting out to find his daughter, he believes he has been tasked with retrieving Elizabeth in order to wipe away his debt. Booker arrives in Columbia and is directed to find Monument Island. Travelling through to the 1912 Raffle and Fair, he is found out to be the False Shepherd, an evil figure prophecized to lead the Lamb of Columbia astray. Immediately, he is hunted down by Comstock's forces, and must fight his way through to Monument Island. There, he meets Elizabeth and is beset upon by Songbird, her giant mechanized jailer. He chases the two down, destroying large portions of the city and part of the Monument in the process, before they escape to Battleship Bay. Later on, the two gain access to The First Lady, an airship capable of taking them to the mainland. However, the two get separated, and Booker finds himself forced to work for Daisy Fitzroy: in order to regain the airship, he must find Chen Lin, an arms manufacturer sympathetic to the Vox Populi's cause, so that they may lead an armed revolution against the Founders. Booker and Elizabeth reunite in Finkton, and travel inside to find that Chen Lin has been murdered by Jeremiah Fink's men. Elizabeth then creates a Tear to a parallel reality in which Chen Lin is still alive, albeit with his tools confiscated. Setting out to Shantytown to find his tools, the two travel through to another Tear in which Columbia is in the middle of an uprising. In this reality, Booker DeWitt was a martyr of the Vox who died for their cause. Fighting their way back to Finkton, the two are discovered by Daisy Fitzroy who orders their execution. At the summit of Fink Manufacturing, Elizabeth kills Daisy after she murders Fink to prevent her from killing a young boy in cold blood. Though the two manage to come back on board the First Lady, they are attacked by Songbird, who crashes the airship into Emporia. Set upon by both the Founders and the Vox, who are rapidly putting the city to ruin, Booker and Elizabeth attempt to gain access to Comstock House. To do so, they must collect a hand from Lady Comstock to bypass a lock. However, Father Comstock activates a Siphon at her grave and resurrects his dead wife as the Siren. Confused and angry, this new entity attacks Booker, using her powers to send armies of dead soldiers against him. Through three Tears, the two discover that Elizabeth is not in fact Comstock's daughter, and that the latter had Lady Comstock and the Lutece twins murdered to keep her origins a secret. In a final battle, Elizabeth finally manages to appease the Siren, who blasts open the door to Comstock House. As soon as they enter, Songbird appears, captures Elizabeth and brings her to Comstock House. In hot pursuit, Booker sets out to rescue her. Instead, he finds that he was too late, and that Elizabeth had been indoctrinated to become Comstock's successor. Fighting his way through Comstock House, he is greeted by an elderly Elizabeth, who explains to him that she felt remorse for her actions and brought him through a Tear to prevent her from turning into a monster. He then witnesses the destruction of New York in 1984, an event he had seen before in a recurring dream. Elizabeth then gives him a note for him to pass down to her younger self, and sends him back to the previous timeline. Inside another part of Comstock House, Booker manages to rescue Elizabeth from torture. Together they board the Hand of the Prophet, Comstock's flagship. Elizabeth meets face-to-face with Comstock and demands he explain her true nature. He can only utter a cryptic response before Booker, in a fit of rage, beats him and drowns him in his own baptismal font. Determined to find answers, Elizabeth uses her older self's note to take control of Songbird and sets course for Monument Island, which houses the primary Siphon that had been limiting her powers all this time. After fighting off waves of Vox Populi, Booker orders the destruction of the Siphon, unlocking Elizabeth's near-godlike powers. She effortlessly transports herself, Booker and Songbird to Rapture, crushing her guardian under the ocean's pressure and leaving Columbia for good. Through a series of Tears, Elizabeth reveals to Booker that Columbia and Rapture are connected via key elements, and are in fact the same city across different realities. Current Status Before Booker and Elizabeth departed Columbia for the Sea of Doors, the city is in ruins, devastated by the Vox Populi who burnt its districts to the ground. However, Elizabeth and Booker are determined to find the truth about her and to stop Comstock from ever harming her. When Booker discovers he is an alternate version of Comstock, he allows Elizabeth to drown him so that he is never able to make the choice that leads to Comstock's birth. With the elimination of Comstock across the timeline, many versions of Columbia's existence are also erased, and the events that occurred over the past twenty years vanish with it. Unexpectedly, however, one version of Columbia survived and rebuilt itself as it drove out the Vox Populi. It then improved itself until its technology level reached to that of the 21st century and enabled itself to colonize the planet Mars within their universe. Locations Columbia is composed of several distinct districts: *Emporia **Bank of the Prophet **Comstock House ***Hand of the Prophet **Downtown Emporia **Emporia Towers **Lutece Labs **Memorial Gardens **Port Prosperity **Thoroughfare *Finkton **Beggar's Wharf **Finkton Docks **Finkton Proper **Fort Franklin **Good Time Club **Plaza of Zeal **Shantytown **Worker Induction Center *Monument Island **Monument Island Gateway **Monument Tower (destroyed in 1912 by Uprising; replaced with a giant lighthouse) *Soldier's Field **Arcade **Battleship Bay **First Lady's Aerodrome ***The First Lady **Hall of Heroes ***First Lady's Memorial **Soldier's Field Welcome Center *Welcome Center **Allied Embassy (built in 1954) **Church of Comstock **Comstock Center Rooftops **Fraternal Order of the Raven **Garden of New Eden **New Eden Square **Raffle Square **Shady Lane **Father Comstock Memorial (built in 1920) Category:Factions Category:Neutral